ORIGIN

Purpose Full: 1987 Honda XL600V Transalp

Even 20+ years later the Honda Transalp is regarded as one of the best all-around motorcycles ever made; comfortable, capable and reliable. Along with the BMW GS it was a defining pioneer in the modern adventure touring bike market. Also like the GS, it was meant to reflect the manufacturer’s efforts in the distance rallies. This low-mile edition looks to be in great condition and ready to go just about anywhere. Find it here on eBay in San Pedro, California.

This 1987 XL600V has just 8,815 miles and appears to be in very good shape. The white fairing and body panels look mostly clean and sharp, as do the seat and the chrome pipes. Sellers notes indicate a recent service – there’s new fluids, filters, battery, chain and tires. Were this bike destined for serious adventuring, we’d swap the plastic engine guard for something more robust and attach some after-market crash bars. And that missing handguard is a much needed.

The 583cc four-stroke V-twin has four sparkplugs, six valves, 2 32mm Mikunis, and delivers a smooth 55 hp to the 5-speed. Watercooling keeps it reliable for all that hot desert scrambling. That rear plate looks like it may be from out of state.

The Transalp is a bike whose class and function everyone now recognizes. It simply never took off in the US, which may not have been ready for a true dual-purpose bike with great street and off-road capabilities. A huge seller for many years in Europe, the US got it for only two. We’re not yet ready to call the US Transalp ‘rare’ but clean low-miles examples like this one are definitely scarce and sought after.

Comments

The first time I went to Europe when I was in my teens (early 90s) I saw these all over the place. In Switzerland, Italy, they were everywhere, as were Africa Twins.

Messengers ripping through the business districts of Milan and Bern with big document boxes mounted to the backs of these things, weaving in and out of traffic, going way to fast… they sounded soooo great.

I’m an old car guy… but this might be the only bike I ever own, along with a BMW GS of the same period. Go anywhere.

Local guy to the Detroit area posted on Craigslist last year that he sure missed his TransAlp, which had been stolen… 15 years earlier! He wanted to know if anyone knew anything about it, or maybe he should just try to find an buy another one?

I laughed out loud! Seriously though, the TransAlp is on my hot list of bikes for it’s many positive features. Honda was more than a decade ahead of the demand in this country. Once burned, now they are not interested in coming back into the sport/adventure bike market it seems.

I love these bikes. I have an 89 like this one, but in nicer shape and a red 90 that has 30k miles on it that is still a great looking bike in spite of the heavy use (that one is loaded with Givis and all). It’s certainly NOT the speed that attracts people to this bike, but the more miles you put on them, the more you love them.

It’s got it’s own special lope and is a great partner for laid-back long drives. Add an aftermarket seat and a taller windshield and just point it to the other coast. Rough roads, dirt trails, highways, all are just fine for this gentle beast.

Panties in a bunch? For me, this has been one of the most educational BAT topics to date. I had no idea that any motorcycle could even top 500K miles! The depth of you guys’ knowledge is astounding, especially Calijags, Cyclemikey and as always, Powermatic.

The TransAlp & Africa Twin are always fun for me to look at, I enjoy seeing design cues that gave Suzuki inspiration for the DL650 and DL1000 from the T/A, Africa Twin, and BMW’s R1100RS.

Goldwing 1200s earned my respect with Scotto’s 480K miles around the world without a rebuild until he arrived in Japan with 260K hard miles on the clock. Personally, I’d rather ride a K75 to the end of time & back instead of a chromed-out 900 lb Goldwing.

Should be interesting to see the Wee-Stroms, several DL650s have hit the 150K mile mark on chain replacements and valve adjustments alone. We’ll see if the numbers continue rising into K75 territory in time.

@Calijags, that is great that you dug up some follow up research on what on second reading appears to be a crazy claim. I do bet there is a 1 million mile Gold Wing out there tonight though, riding around middle America….. Freezing. I’d way rather do the Big miles on the TransAlp.

@Steve- my wife has an NX250 as well. We both love the bike. Took me a while to find a nice one. All these types of Honda dual purpose bikes were great. Her’s is liquid cooled, six speed, electric start and amazingly reliable. It will touch 90mph on a dirt road and pull thru the sand at Pismo without heating up at all (w/ the right tires of course). Not bad for a simple 250 enduro. Suprisingly uncommon- even the motorcycle dealer at Bert’s- a 20 year veteran motorcycle dealer in LA- had never heard of one.

Written by a GW1800 Rider’s forum member named Chuck211, a member with over 3300 Posts. “I have seen a few 4 cylinder Wings with over 1 million miles on them and still running great with no major engine work at all..

I even tore down a 1.2 million mile 81 Wing just to check it out for a customer that thought it was time to take a look inside being he was keeping bike for the rest of his life. When I checked everything out only 3 parts were close to being out of spec (he wanted them changed even though they were still good) I was amazed at this engine. He changed oil every 6,000 miles using petroleum based oil,he changed tires,brake pads,two u joints but other then that he rode the crap out of the old girl.

I have seen many 1500 Wings with over 500,000 miles on them in my shop with no major engine work ever done to them.

I’ve seen a (few) not many at all 1800’s with over 500,000 miles on them with no major engine work ever done to them.

Honda once told us at a factory training school, the 1988 thru 1996 1500 Wing engine should last an easy 500,000 miles. They said the 1997 thru 2000 1500 Wing engine should last an easy 1 million miles. Now this was Honda themselves telling us this, so you can do with this as you see fit.

I only ever attended one 1800 school and they never gave any idea of the life of the 1800 engine when asked. They just said it should have a life close to the 1500’s. Which 1500 I have no idea at all..

The 4 cylinder Wing is very hard to beat as far as how long it will last, but the 6 cylinders are not to bad themselves.

I say ride the heck out of them and enjoy, they’ll let you know when their tired long before they cost you money to keep going.” _____________

@Calijags – true enough, but the previous motor in the Shrike was a Yamaha 650 Maxim, which went 78K before going BANG at full song in second gear! Just my opinion, but I’d wager that the average mileage on recent Jap bikes when they finally quit will be over 50K, and I’d agree that the average bimmer will be significantly higher. And yup, the Transalp is mighty purty.

Love those Transalps, though I seem to recall the later year(s) having more displacement? That explains the additional horsepower others have mentioned. As far as BMW reliability goes, have ridden 2 beemers (R1150 RS and 1100GS) to near a 100K each, but both needed new transmissions, shaft drive, Stator, and the RS a new rear suspension, etc. I’ve got 90K on a V-Strom with nothing but new drive chains, 70K on a Concours with no parts replaced, and 62K on a KLR with nothing replaced but the chains and sprockets (obviously brake pads on all these, oil, etc.). I’d put my money on the Japanese.

@Mr. Shrike – a 130hp Bimmer drivetrain pushing an extra 500 lbs of trike curbweight is probably not a good indicator of OEM drivetrain reliability.

As I mentioned before, Gold Wings are kind of an anomaly and there are parking lots full of Gold Wings with 50k miles on them, but of the Japanese manufacturers, Honda alone has pumped out several times more Gold Wings than BMW has total motorcycles.

But of the total liter bikes (vs scoots, 250cc commuters, etc) produced by Japan, a very tiny percentage make it down the long highway to 50,000 miles. Its rare.

“Yeah. Tongue in cheek, sorry, should’ve put the smiley on there. I know the hawks have solid engines but i’ve got to believe that if you’ve got 62 other bikes, surely there’s one there less punishing on the highway than the Honda Hawk.”

Oh for long trips, sure, several, including an Airhead BMW and a Goldwing. But last spring I bought a new 2010 bike to ride back to Ohio for Vintage Motorcycle Days. I’m not a large rider, so I got a Honda NT700V mid-size tourer, which has, of course, the same basic engine as the Hawk. It did great.

I’ve had a ’90 Transalp for a good while, after years of yearning for the fire roads when I was traveling on big-bore streetbikes (an FJ1200 makes a poor fire-road bomber) or dreading the interstates when riding smaller d/p bikes (XT350), and it’s been great.

Two-up touring with luggage and all is no problem, nice wind protection, reliable, a hoot in the twisties…and when you see a fire road reaching off into the limitless blue horizon, zoom zoom.

It’s heavy for its class, has annoying rubber-mounted bars, is no king of power and is covered with expensive, easy-to-crack plastic, but by god, damn the torpedoes, point it in the direction you want to go, and just go.

I remember following a BMW GS rider once on a small Northern California backroad – he zipped over a blind, off-camber rise, and I followed – only to find that it turned to gravel on the other side! And me riding two-up with plenty of gear. No problem – just relax, the flexi-flyer ‘Alp just wiggled a bit, and took it in stride. It’s more Barcalounger than scalpel, but once you get used to trusting the stable, reliable handling, and moderate, predictable power, it’s easy to ride surprisingly quickly in the dirt, even fully loaded.

Sadly, my short inseam might mitigate an amicable parting from the old gal (it’s tippy-toes all the way for me when stopping), but maybe I’ll just get a leg extension instead. Or tall shoes.

Re Honda vs BMW reliability: the average Gold Wing in our Gold Wing Touring Association chapter has way over 50K, while the K1200RS in my Shrike reverse trike has eaten three clutches (the last due to a failed rear main seal) and a gearbox in 62K. I’ll still take the K over the Wing just for the personality transition from murmur to wail occurring from 6K to 9K revs.

Yeah, I forgot to mention anything about the posted bike-I’ve always like these, and I’m stumped at Honda’s refusal, even now, to import them. Like BMW hasn’t shown the market for a dual sport? Go figure….

Nice road test report on the RR ‘Calijags’-sounds like a hoot-but it’s been my thought that the price was held artificially low, considering all the electronic hi-techery and best-in-class hp numbers, in order to wrest market share from the Japanese race-replica competition, and they would slowly raise prices with each new model year. It’s easy, after all, to spend 20k on a new 1200GS. Also, I think that the ABS is officially an ‘option’, though I’d guess you’d have a difficult time finding one without it, and ABS-equipped bikes are actually closer to 16k retail.

Even at that price, tho, BMW seems to be doing something right. In a depressed market, their bike sales were up 12% globally last year, and read this concerning RR sales in the U.S.:

“Perhaps the most striking news though is the fact that the new S1000RR superbike dominated liter bike sales in the United States, and even outsold the R1200GS here domestically, making 2010 a very successful year for BMW not only on the balance sheet, but also as proof that the Germans can sell bikes that aren’t featured in Long Way Around.”

Yeah. Tongue in cheek, sorry, should’ve put the smiley on there. I know the hawks have solid engines but i’ve got to believe that if you’ve got 62 other bikes, surely there’s one there less punishing on the highway than the Honda Hawk.

I cant help but interject here. you don’t see many Japanese bikes with over 50k because most people buy them as playthings, and not long term transport.

a K75 was my first and only foray into BMW bikes. i bought it for its reputation of long term reliability. aside from sub-par performance, it had all kinds of niggling reliability issues. sold it after about 15k miles.

i had an 86 VFR that i put 165k miles on. it was not babied in any way. nothing more than valve adjustments every 50k and it was still running strong when i sold it. replaced it with a Hawk GT in 1997 for daily transportation. never any problems and still have it. i’ve put about 50k miles on my FZ6 so far and it still looks, feels, and performs like new. i’ve had many, many more bikes, but usually sell them at around 25k miles because i’m looking for a new experience, not because the bikes are used up.

that said, i love Transalps and NX’s. there were so many cool and interesting bikes from the 80’s. so may choices, so little garage space . . .

It’s a five-digit odo, my friend. But I honestly don’t understand your comment. What has being a shop owner (1975-2006 BTW) got to do with riding bikes? I’ve got 62 bikes in my collection currently, and while some are concours trailer queens, a great number of them have been with me for, literally, decades, and are riders in every sense of the word. I used to take the Hawk out virtually every weekend when I lived in San Diego, and rode it to work often. It was my hands-down favorite on Palomar among other rides. There are other guys on the Hawk GT forums who have put 100K plus on their bikes, BTW. I’m not current on those forums anymore.

Anyway, didn’t mean to get you riled. It’s a nice TransAlp, and the S100RR is a nice bike too.

But, I don’t need to go to ebay for examples. I can go into my garage and fire up my Hawk GT, bought new, with 106,000 miles on it. Never even had the heads off. And there are more.

I have nothing against BMWs; I’m a BMW owner. The reputation for durability was mainly a function of the type of bikes manufactured and riders (LD touring) back in the day. But the Airheads are gone now, and the Japanese no longer make inexpensive tiddlers Modern Asian bikes are no more or less durable than German ones. The notion that any of them is serviceable by the side of the road is kind of laughable. My opinion, worth what you paid for it. Have a great day.

lol. i caught that tongue in cheek, didn’t mean to be a prick, just comes naturally. ;-)

The S1000RR felt extremely light. I didn’t track it, so I can’t comment on that, but just in parking lot positioning it felt well balanced and light.

Had some kind of wheelie control on it that banged the front end down like a hammer on I didn’t like. You could probably turn that off if you read the manual or even weren’t texting during the briefing.

Some things on there that were surprising, why build what you claim is a full race bike with ABS? Even though you can turn it off, its twelve pounds of weight no racer will ever use.

I didn’t really get a chance launch it off the line, but I did taste the high end briefly and it seemed very stable at speeds.

Put that engine and brakes on a two-up touring bike and I think you’ve got a winner – (imagine being able to 0-60 at 2.5 seconds with two 200lb riders on the bike), but at $14k, I’m not sure you’ll be converting too many potential R1 buyers.

This bike is an ’89 as the ebay listing states, not an ’87. Transalps were only imported into the USA in ’89 and ’90. I have one of these in my collection in showroom new condition, although I do take it out and run it occasionally. They’re hard to find now in well-preserved low miles condition, because they’re good, fun rides both on the street and in light off-road use like forest roads. That small-case Honda V-twin is bulletproof. If the reserve is reasonable, this one may be a very good buy.

I’ll defer to your (vastly) greater knowledge of, well, all things motoring-and I’ll agree that even a modern BMW boxer motor will last many more miles than a typical Japanese bike-so I guess I was referring to the ancillary parts of a new BMW. If I were to embark on a round the world trip without the safety net of a film crew and factory support, particularly if I were going to Africa or SA, I’d probably be looking long and hard at an Airhead GS.

Regarding reliability, spend some time on some of the adventure bike sites and you’ll be surprised at how many of these you’ll see with 100K miles on them. The Shadow powerplant (on which this is based) and the 700 Nighthawk are Honda’s two most durable designs.

BMW was once known as THE choice for a durable machine, but they’ve spent a good part of the last 20 years eroding that reputation. Powermatic is spot-on… a big part of BMW’s problem has been the manufacturer’s arrogant attitude when it comes to dealing with defects: look up “GS final drive failure” or “R1100 transmission jumps out of 3rd gear” (because putting plastic thrust bearings in a gearbox is SUCH a good idea) to see how they (don’t) handle things.

I’ve owned several of both brands, and I can say without question that there are gems and lemons from each so whatever you buy, be sure to do your homework.

I should add as a caveat to bike purchasers that there is no easier vehicle to manipulate mileage on than a motorcycle… most odometers can be off the bike in fifteen minutes, I’ve gotten lots of bikes whose paperwork stashed in toolkits, sissybar zippers packs, etc belayed their stated mileage.

Having ridden the first metallic urine S1000rr in California (with -139 miles on it at the time), I’ll agree that’s a technology-leading bike, but BMW has historically targeted long run reliability over maximum performance.

Sure, every 1150/1200 needs a clutch at 60k just like the K bikes all need a spline, but you really never see original-engined Japanese bikes with over 50,000 miles on them.

Of course its not all equivalent… bimmers have an older, more conservative-riding owner set, etc, but having seen thousands of bikes go at auctions/shows, the highest mileage Japanese bike I’ve ever seen was a re-engined 1992 178k mile Concourse. And during that time I’ve seen at least ten similar era K75 bikes with over 500k on the original case.

And while you can’t change a valve cover gasket in ten minutes like you could on a boxer, the new touring Bimmers are still more roadside-maintenance friendly than similar Asian bikes.

Friend had one – nice idea, very comfy but also very underpowered. As far as BMW final drive failure, that is/was a relatively recent phenomena, limited to basically one series of bikes and rectified. The culprit was a bad bunch of bearings as I remember. And NO new bikes, save maybe the Enfield, are simple! But I imagine Mr Calijags was referring to pre-oilhead GS’s.

I had one of these bikes. Bought it from a guy in the middle of nowhere at a great price. I made over a grand on it when I sold it several years later. Great bike, but sometimes the carbs wee hard to keep balanced. Only ever saw 1 other guy in town riding one.

I often found notes on the tank asking to buy it when I wanted to sell.

I can remember when I was Young and these were a year old they used to be art the local honda dealer on super discounts because no one was buying them. I sold mine for more than the “new last year model” price from back then.

Google ‘BMW final drive failure’, or ‘ring antenna’, and that legendary reliability might not be so impressive-and the way BMW corporate handles the issue(s) even less so. And if you think the newest liter-and-above BMWS are “simple” you haven’t had a test ride for awhile.

I’ve ridden BMWs many thousands of miles, but at this juncture I’d probably go Japanese if ‘reliability’ was my only concern.

Steve man, I’m sorry but the NX250’s big brother is not this bike it’s the NX650, called “Dominator” in some countries. I had one with open supertrap exhaust, it sounded like an apocalypse and ran circles around Transalps on any gravel surface. But the Transalp is better on tarmac though. Still I’d go for the NX650 any day of the week, more fun and better looking.

Nice bike, I still have one an89 that has served me well on many trips. A well mannered bike with good ergos. Just one small correction, the 87 had 50 hp and the 89 and 90 had 55 hp. Great bikes and trhis one looks good. There is lots of info on these bikes and a large following. cheers for a great site Mike

Had the 750 version, the Africa Twin of this in Japan. Traveled all over Japan. The narrow front tire allowed me to pass many a BMW GS in the soft stuff. They passed me on the paved roads. A great bike and the carbs allowed you to work with them when you were in real back roads. This is a bike that you can beat up and go many places with. A bit heavy. One of the funny things is being able to pass sport bikes on slow sweepers with a DP bike because of the seating position and handle bars.